For our fifth anniversary, we’re picking our top five posts from the last year. So I’ve reviewed all of my posts, a fruitful exercise that reminds me I’m still partial to stories about doctrine, the liturgical calendar and unlikely stories of how faith changes religious adherents. Even though these are my favorite topics to write about, they rarely elicit as much feedback as political posts. I normally dislike writing about politics but this last year was a huge exception.
Happy five years!
It seems like just a few months ago that I was compiling my list of top stories from the previous year. Regardless of how quickly I would like to see time fly by, what follows is my summary from the past year and a celebration of this blog’s five years in existence.
Religion enters stage left
One of the big stories of last year was President Barack Obama’s religious outreach efforts. And yet the rise of politically liberal religious groups was horribly undercovered. Instead we saw a lot of stories about how evangelical Christians were broadening their areas of interest. It’s a weird blind spot considering that the religious groups supporting President George W. Bush and Republicans in general are always well noticed by the media.
Style choices on abortion talk
It would be hard to write a more angry, snarky headline than the one atop that piece by Ken Shepherd that the Newsbusters crew shot over the bow of the nation’s best known evangelical magazine.
Rabbit at rest
John Updike, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist known for his detailed portrayals of life — the mundane and the ecstatic — died this week. I didn’t get the chance to read him until about 10 years ago when one of my best friends introduced me to his prolific work. But I really enjoyed his prose and also what seemed to be a distinctly Lutheran approach to sin and justification.
Covering the faith in faith-based
When the President of the United States appoints an official to lead, say, the Department of Health and Human Services, reporters generally tell their readers or viewers what that person believes about issues relating to health. The same is generally true for positions such as Attorney General or any other position that has some level of autonomy from the chief executive.
Behold, this is post No. 4000
There is nothing special about this particular GetReligion post, other than the fact that this is post No. 4000 in the history of this here weblog.
God of the goalposts
Football and Christianity. Christian witness and football-the two are intertwined in contemporary culture.
Obama: Get (civil) religion
Here’s a term that you should get used to hearing once again, during the era of President Barack Obama — “civil religion.”
